Comparing The Themes Of Two Poems English Literature Essay

In this essay I will be comparing the verse form by Robert Frost “ The Road Not Taken ” and Wislawa Szymborska ‘s verse form “ Nothing Twice. ” What is immediately apparent to me in these two verse forms is the evident simpleness of both coupled with a great power of the linguistic communication. However, it ‘s easy to read these verse forms, but difficult to see the inexplicit message conveyed by writers. The subject that unites both of the verse form is the subject of life. Life and the picks we make is what matters to both poets. But at the same clip these verse forms provide complex contrast to one another on farther degrees of reading. So, allow ‘s take a deeper penetration into these two compelling plants of art.

The major subject of the two verse forms is one time once more a subject of life. In the Frost ‘s verse form the talker stands at a fork in the forests. Both roads look every bit worn and every bit covered with pathless foliages. Therefore, the talker has to confront the quandary of taking merely one of them. The word pick in the verse form is really clever, because a reader can easy follow the metaphorical significance of the waies in the wood and the fork, which stand for line of life and the job of doing of import life picks. Through graphic metaphors Robert Frost reminisces of the clip he had to take the “ route ” in his life. The concluding two lines seem to propose that the writer is speaking about his taking a calling in literature, non in any other domain of human activity:

Two roads diverged in a wood and I-

I took the 1 less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The tone of the verse form is slightly sad. The writer is “ regretful I could non go both ” roads. And the job of choice-making is what makes readers associate to the verse form vastly, because the latter brush it countless times in their lives. However, there is no right or incorrect “ way ” -there is either the chosen or non chosen one.

“ The Road Not Taken ” comprises four stanzas of five lines each. There are four stressed syllables per line, and the rhyme strategy is ABAAB. Repeat of word “ and ” at the beginning of several lines throughout the verse form strengthens the consequence of the latter on a reader.

As for the verse form of Wislawa Szymborska, the really rubric of it already suggests the verse form ‘s chief idea-nothing happens twice. Initially, the writer seems to be speaking about this job really by and large. In the first two stanzas she points that things in life are really fleeting. Szymobska says that in life experiences happen merely one time. We are given one opportunity, but the sarcasm is that “ we arrive here improvised ” and are frequently non ready for this lone one opportunity. Finally, as she gets more specific, readers find out that she talks about love. More than that, she talks approximately love to a specific adult male. She suggests really gracefully the thought of adversities in the relationship: “ is it a flower or a stone? ”

Closer to the terminal of the verse form she raises another philosophical job:

Why do we handle the fugitive twenty-four hours

with so much gratuitous fright and sorrow?

However, she does n’t try to travel deep and happen an reply to this inquiry. She merely tries to do us cognizant of the job. “ Today is ever gone tomorrow ” is likely the cardinal line in the verse form. All the things that people experience today are gone tomorrow. The experiences of minute are skilfully linked with infinity, and this is what gives the verse form its greatest strength.

“ Nothing Twice ” consists of seven stanzas of four lines each. The beat of the verse form is ABAB. Through the use of similes, repeats, and legion adjectives the writer makes the poem sound really tuneful.

As we can see, both verse forms are really alone. They do n’t co-occur neither in signifier or content. While Frost draws our attending to the job of doing of import picks in life, Szymborska grounds about experiences of the minute that ca n’t be relived once more. In fact, though so different, the verse forms relate more than meets the oculus. Both writers raise the of all time present experiential inquiries. When, as in “ The Road Not Taken ” , we hesitate what way to take, we should retrieve Szymborska ‘s cardinal point that nil will go on twice. We wo n’t be able to return to that fork and do another choice-choose another “ route. ” Therefore, two wholly different writers teach a reader one great lesson of life.

Nothing Twice

A

by Wislawa Szymborska

Translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak

Nothing can of all time go on twice.

In effect, the regretful fact is

that we arrive here improvised

and go forth without the opportunity to pattern.

Even if there is no 1 dumber,

if you ‘re the planet ‘s biggest dunderhead,

you ca n’t reiterate the category in summer:

this class is merely offered one time.

No twenty-four hours transcripts yesterday,

no two darks will learn what cloud nine is

in exactly the same manner,

with exactly the same busss.

One twenty-four hours, possibly some idle lingua

references your name by accident:

I feel as if a rose were flung

into the room, all chromaticity and aroma.

The following twenty-four hours, though you ‘re here with me,

I ca n’t assist looking at the clock:

A rose? A rose? What could that be?

Is it a flower or a stone?

Why do we handle the fugitive twenty-four hours

with so much gratuitous fright and sorrow?

It ‘s in its nature non to state

Today is ever gone tomorrow

With smilings and busss, we prefer

to seek agreement beneath our star,

although we ‘re different ( we concur )

merely as two beads of H2O are.

But reading of these verse forms on farther degrees provides compelling differences between both.

Merely they look at different of all time present jobs of being.

Both raise of all time present existencial jobs: Frost-having to do important picks in our life, SLjf- love and living things one time. But both suggest that we ca n’t live over our experiences: we ca n’t travel back to this fork and take another route, we ca n’t love

Two roads diverged in a xanthous wood,

And sorry I could non go both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one every bit far as I could

To where it bent in the underbrush ;

Then took the other, every bit merely as just,

And holding possibly the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear ;

Though every bit for that the passing at that place

Had worn them truly about the same,

And both that forenoon every bit lay

In leaves no measure had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another twenty-four hours!

Yet cognizing how manner leads on to manner,

I doubted if I should of all time come back.

I shall be stating this with a suspiration

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —

I took the 1 less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Frost ‘s Early Poems

“ The Road Not Taken ”

Complete Text

Two roads diverged in a xanthous wood And sorry I could non go both And be one traveller, long I stood And looked down one every bit far as I could To where it bent in the underbrush ; 5 Then took the other, every bit merely as just And holding possibly the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear ; Though as for that, the passing at that place Had worn them truly about the same, 10 And both that forenoon every bit lay In leaves no measure had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another twenty-four hours! Yet cognizing how manner leads on to manner, I doubted if I should of all time come back. 15 I shall be stating this with a suspiration Somewhere ages and ages therefore: Two roads diverged in a wood and I — I took the 1 less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. 20

Drumhead

The talker stands in the forests, sing a fork in the route. Both ways are every bit worn and every bit overlaid with un-trodden foliages. The talker chooses one, stating himself that he will take the other another twenty-four hours. Yet he knows it is improbable that he will hold the chance to make so. And he admits that someday in the hereafter he will animate the scene with a little turn: He will claim that he took the less-traveled route.

A Form

“ The Road Not Taken ” consists of four stanzas of five lines. The rhyme strategy is ABAAB ; the rimes are rigorous and masculine, with the noteworthy exclusion of the last line ( we do non normally stress the -ence of difference ) . There are four stressed syllables per line, changing on an iambic tetrameter base.

Comment

This has got to be among the best-known, most-often-misunderstood verse forms on the planet. Several coevalss of careless readers have turned it into a piece of Hallmark happy-graduation-son, seize-the-future puffery. Cursed with a perfect matrimony of signifier and content, collaring phrase wrought from simple words, and resonating metaphor, it seems as if “ The Road Not Taken ” gets memorized without truly being read. For this it has died the cliche ‘s un-death of fiddling immortality.

But you yourself can raise it from zombie-hood by reading it — non with imaginativeness, even, but merely with truth. Of the two roads the talker says “ the passing at that place / Had worn them truly about the same. ” In fact, both roads “ that forenoon ballad / In leaves no measure had trodden black. ” Meaning: Neither of the roads is less traveled by. These are the facts ; we can non justifiably disregard the echos they send through the easy apothegm of the last two stanzas.

One of the attractive forces of the verse form is its archetypical quandary, one that we immediately recognize because each of us encounters it countless times, both literally and figuratively. Waies in the forests and forks in roads are ancient and deep-rooted metaphors for the line of life, its crises and determinations. Identical forks, in peculiar, typify for us the link of free will and destine: We are free to take, but we do non truly cognize beforehand what we are taking between. Our path is, therefore, determined by an accumulation of pick and opportunity, and it is impossible to divide the two.

This verse form does non rede. It does non state, “ When you come to a fork in the route, analyze the footmarks and take the route less traveled by ” ( or even, as Yogi Berra cryptically quipped, “ When you come to a fork in the route, take it ” ) . Frost ‘s focal point is more complicated. First, there is no less-traveled route in this verse form ; it is n’t even an option. Following, the verse form seems more concerned with the inquiry of how the concrete nowadays ( xanthous forests, grassy roads covered in fallen foliages ) will look from a future vantage point.

The dry tone is ineluctable: “ I shall be stating this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence. ” The talker anticipates his ain hereafter falseness — his demand, subsequently on in life, to rearrange the facts and shoot a dosage of Lone Ranger into the history. He knows that he will be inaccurate, at best, or hypocritical, at worst, when he holds his life up as an illustration. In fact, he predicts that his hereafter ego will bewray this minute of determination as if the treachery were inevitable. This realisation is dry and affectingly hapless. But the “ sigh ” is critical. The talker will non, in his old age, simply gather the young person about him and state, “ Do what I did, kiddies. I stuck to my guns, took the route less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. ” Rather, he may state this, but he will suspire foremost ; for he wo n’t believe it himself. Somewhere in the dorsum of his head will stay the image of xanthous forests and two every bit leafy waies.

Ironic as it is, this is besides a verse form infused with the expectancy of compunction. Its rubric is non “ The Road Less Traveled ” but “ The Road Not Taken. ” Even as he makes a pick ( a pick he is forced to do if does non desire to stand everlastingly in the forests, one for which he has no existent usher or unequivocal footing for decision-making ) , the talker knows that he will outguess himself someplace down the line — or at the really least he will inquire at what is irrevocably lost: the impossible, unknowable Other Path. But the nature of the determination is such that there is no Right Path — merely the chosen way and the other way. What are sighed for ages and ages therefore are non so much the incorrect determinations as the minutes of determination themselves — minutes that, one atop the other, tag the passing of a life. This is the more cardinal strain of compunction.

Therefore, to add a farther degree of sarcasm, the subject of the verse form may, after all, be “ prehend the twenty-four hours. ” But a more nuanced carpe diem, if you please.

Like a fading piece of fabric I am a failure

What is instantly obvious to me in Blake ‘s ‘The Tyger ‘ is the powerful rhythm the poet has created coupled with the evident simpleness but great power of the linguistic communication. Blake does this by utilizing repeat, emphasis and beat, reenforcing this farther by punctuation and initial rhyme ( ‘Tyger! Tyger! firing bright ‘ ) . The strong rime adds yet farther to the power of the lines and the images they create. The power which comes from this evident simpleness is, possibly, what makes the verse forms so memorable. It would be an easy verse form to larn by bosom.

It might be easy to read and retrieve, but it is surely non so easy to understand. Some of Blake ‘s phrases are unusual ( ‘immortal manus ‘ ) , some seem really old fashioned ( ‘thine ‘ ) , and others are used with different significances from those we use today ( ‘frame ‘ ) . Added to this, Blake uses many graphic metaphors, which produce strong images of beauty and power ( ‘ … firing bright / In the woods of the dark ‘ ) but which are less obvious in their significance.

The verse form is besides full of inquiries – 12 in all. Possibly Blake intends the verse form to be less than easy to understand because he, excessively, had tonss of inquiries he could n’t reply. The first inquiry intimations that this verse form is non truly about nature despite its rubric,

The ‘immortal manus ‘can merely refer to God, and this gives the verse form a spiritual subject that is continued through the staying inquiries. Asking so many inquiries of God – particularly the concluding inquiry, which is a turn on the concluding line of stanza one, ( ‘What immortal manus or oculus / Dare frame thy fearful symmetricalness? ‘ ) seems to propose that Blake can non understand how God could make an animate being that is at one and the same clip both beautiful and fearful, even evil.

At the terminal of stanza five, it is easy to conceive of the tiger killing the Lamb, and, with the Lamb being given a capital ‘L ‘ it might mention to the ‘Lamb of God ‘ or Jesus Christ. Did Blake, who is known to hold hated what he saw as God ‘s ‘natural faith ‘ being misused by the leaders of world, mean non a tiger but a adult male? And that adult male has somehow destroyed Christ, or at least, what Christ was meant to stand for in the universe? Is God shouting at what he sees of how His creative activity ( ‘watered heaven ‘ ) has been ruined by world?

Surely, Blake wrote this verse form at a violent clip in history, when England had attacked France shortly after the Gallic Revolution. This revolution began in the hope of liberating ordinary work forces from dictatorship and the uncontrolled power of male monarchs. It was meant to convey freedom and equality for ordinary people – something close to Blake ‘s ain bosom. It does look that there is sarcasm, even irony, in the two inquiries of stanza five: ‘Did he smile his work to see? / Did he who made the Lamb do thee? ‘Perhaps Blake meant ‘Could he… ‘when he wrote, ‘Did he… ‘ ?

It is non easy to cognize what Blake truly wanted for his readers in this unusual and absorbing verse form. But what can non be doubted is power and beauty of the verse form. Possibly Blake merely wanted his readers to experience this power and beauty and to inquire themselves why our universe should incorporate such antonyms as goodness and immorality, beauty and ugliness?